Where to find vocalists?

[popflier]

I have been looking for both a female and a male vocalist for some electro, dark wave, and a couple of 80s inspired tracks. Any suggestions on where to start? I am located in Denver but that doesn't mean the vocalists need to be based here. I've tried many local resources (schools, friends in bands, local newspaper posts, etc...) with no luck.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

[garryknight]

A bit of an FAQ, this one. I always point people at https://vocalizr.com/

[popflier]

A bit of an FAQ, this one. I always point people at https://vocalizr.com/

Thanks Garry. I listened to probably 50 or so vocalists and they all pretty much sound the same. Catering heavily to the vocal house, top 40, pop trends or to rap/hip/r&b. I'm looking for something more unique and unusual vocal-wise.

For a male, I'm looking for someone that sounds like Daniel Ash (Love and Rockets), Gavin Friday, 3D (Massive Attack), or Tricky. For a female, I'm looking for someone that sounds more like Miss Kittin, Karin Dreijer Andersson (The Knife), or Lou Rhodes (Lamb).

If you, or anyone else, has any other ideas please let me know.

[garryknight]

Well, there's always fiverr, I suppose. But one other option occurs to me off the top of my head. Find some sites that host acapellas such as ccMixter and listen to stuff in the genre you want to produce. If you find someone, message them and ask if they'll sing for you.

They'll probably want a couple of stem tracks: one of the background music, and one of you or someone else doing a rough take of the vocals. If you don't have someone to do the vocals, you could just send a stem track of a lead instrument playing the main melody. Also, give them some idea of how much leeway they have with the vocals in terms of changing the melody, adding harmonies or counterpoint, and so on.

You can exchange files using Dropbox or the like.

[RichieWitch]

This is going to sound odd... but try Craig's List.

In several cities I've lived in (even some of the smaller ones) you'll sometimes see ads in the "Talent" section for vocalists offering to sing, write lyrics for other people's music, and record their voice in their home studio based on your needs. Rates depend on how much you want them to contribute, but I've seen vocals for a full song around $50.

The other thing to try is head down the local "open mic" venue and listen to people sing. It makes for a fun evening and it's surprising the voice quality you'll stumble across.

[kamalmanzukie]

i'm working on a singing synthesizer maybe you would prefer your singer could be a computer someday

other than that, iono, hang around colleges or venues or other places where bigshots will be. good singers are kinds of by necessarity bigshots, so if you don't know one it sounds more likely to catch one in the wild if they are any good.

it seems unlikey to find one responding to classifieds, not sure why?? just a general feeling of the personality type

that being said, i've been known to refer to myself as a very accomplished singer

[popflier]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I've tried local colleges and craigslist but have struck out. I might try fiverr. Can't hurt.

Actually, I would absolutely be interested in a vocal synthesizer. I love Benny Benassi and that's pretty much all he uses. I have programs like Balabolka and have exported phrases and used them in tracks. I've been looking for something like this for a while now. Let me know when it's done. I'd love to check it out.

[someone called simon]

what about going to some live venues and checking out local performers?

[kamalmanzukie]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I've tried local colleges and craigslist but have struck out. I might try fiverr. Can't hurt.

Actually, I would absolutely be interested in a vocal synthesizer. I love Benny Benassi and that's pretty much all he uses. I have programs like Balabolka and have exported phrases and used them in tracks. I've been looking for something like this for a while now. Let me know when it's done. I'd love to check it out.

if you use reaktor, it will be very soon. its been a couple years to do the inventing part, next all i have to do is figure out how to rebuild it as a vst. it wont be free but not expensive either. and it'll allow you to model your own voice easily, and have text to speech and other things

[Aloysius]

You can find many ''vocalists'' in the shower.

[Jace-BeOS]

I'm kind of surprised there aren't more vocalists on here. I guess I shouldn't be. It seems the software and synth crowd is highly technical (?) and seem more driven by gear and production than the desire to sing (?).

Are you seeking a writer for the vocal parts or just a singer? Actually, you said "vocalist", rather than singer, and mentioned Massive Attack, so maybe your talking about spoken-word as well as singing? Is your music online somewhere?

[JJBiener]

Community theaters, college music programs, Karaoke bars, voice teachers, bulletin boards at music stores and pawn shops, local music papers, local talent boards. Good luck.

[Chemik]

I so empathize with the thread starter. Here is the dilemma. You want a vocalist but you don't want a "vocalist". You want attitude and uniqueness, not young women doing throaty weak imitations of Adele or guys auditioning for soul or rock bands. For my Pool Waitress project, my first singer was a woman I worked with. For the second album, it was a young lady from my church. In both cases, everywhere I went I would say I was a musician and see if anyone bit and say they sang.

For all my other projects, I became the singer and worked on developing wildly different ways of expression. Shouting like Nitzer Ebb? Yep. Nasal Pet Shop Boys approach? On my next album. Quirky Kraftwerk or whispered half-talky vocals like Dance or Die's Time Zero? Yep. Distorted screams like Leatherstrip. You know it! In all cases, I would've preferred hearing someone, anyone else, but myself, but they don't exist. Or, more importantly, I don't know how to find them.

[kamalmanzukie]

I so empathize with the thread starter. Here is the dilemma. You want a vocalist but you don't want a "vocalist". You want attitude and uniqueness, not young women doing throaty weak imitations of Adele or guys auditioning for soul or rock bands. For my Pool Waitress project, my first singer was a woman I worked with. For the second album, it was a young lady from my church. In both cases, everywhere I went I would say I was a musician and see if anyone bit and say they sang.

For all my other projects, I became the singer and worked on developing wildly different ways of expression. Shouting like Nitzer Ebb? Yep. Nasal Pet Shop Boys approach? On my next album. Quirky Kraftwerk or whispered half-talky vocals like Dance or Die's Time Zero? Yep. Distorted screams like Leatherstrip. You know it! In all cases, I would've preferred hearing someone, anyone else, but myself, but they don't exist. Or, more importantly, I don't know how to find them.

same, on the not liking your own vocal sound. it took years but i eventually got to the point where it wasnt painful or depressing to hear, and fairly recently i even had the notion that it sounded how i wanted it to sound. of course i am one of those people with the pathological need to be the center of attention when performing

[courtneygracemusic33]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

Hello. I'm a work for hire vocalist and audio engineer with my own recording studio in San Francisco. You can hear some of my work at my website:

www.courtneygracemusic.com (http://www.courtneygracemusic.com)

Let me know if you would like to work together.